point, with regard to which I enclose a fragment I cut from a letter of our old college friend-how long that seems ago-Tom Kennedy, and beg heartily to concur in his sentiments! He is a fine fellow, and keeps up his freshness against the heated and over-literary air of university life surprisingly.

I am in the very heat of preparations for the campaign, as I said before, and receive congratulation on all quarters, though none that I value more than yours. You would be pleased, I am sure, to see in what warm terms Emily speaks of you in her last. Apropos, would you take the trouble to look out if a certain dressing case I ordered to be sent down last week, as soon as the fittings-devised after a plan of my own, were completed-has reached Nesford in safety? Owing to the mis-arrangements of country carriers, I could frank it no further....

ENCLOSURE IN THE ABOVE, FROM KENNEDY.

"Not in entire forgetfulness," dear Cary, have I so long omitted to thank you for your welcome letter. My very choicest congratulations to you on But a wretched victim, like myself your success. -fixed and nailed to three months' study at this dreary Bethgelert, with nothing military in view but the camp of Caractacus-nothing more romantic than a fat, red-haired housekeeper, who does not speak English-is not fit to approach so joyous a subject, or to take the fair Emily's name in vain.

I have read some twenty chapters of Thucy

dides to-day, and in consequence, the speeches of Spartan ambassadors make more music in my ears-though different-than the accents of a certain “amiable and accomplished young lady" can even in yours; and scenes of ancient field and councilchamber have been more present to the imagina tion than the perfect form of the thorough-bred, or the yet more interesting lineaments of its precious burden!

What is Eustace about? From his description, when last we met, of a fair enchantress he has discovered down at the sea-coast, in the south-west of England, I am almost afraid he may have committed the faux pas of trespassing on your preserves. If, however, there be, as I suspect, a sister in the case -and I might give him counsel in a matter perhaps too delicate for the uninitiated-I would say him, "Honour to the brave!-take your chance, and in for it!-follow your leader (i.e. A. C. C.)— and so forth!"

to

EDWARD TO CATHERINE.

June 22.

Thanks for your counsel, my sensible sister. The wish, however, for your presence grows daily,-Lucy joins, and I fancy that I am quite sincere in it. Meanwhile, the only substitute is to pay special devotion to those with me:

"Talor vo cercand' io

Donna, quant' è possibile, in altrui

La desiata vostra forma vera."

It delights me to hear of your musical experiences

-Auch in Arcadien: I, too, am in the land of song, and I sit beside my two performers without a wish for a larger company. As for the music itself, you know your brother is not qualified to criticise it. Though I see that Emily has the greater ease; Lucy, the deepest enjoyment of its essential excellence. The only fault I could notice is that her touch is a little too firm and decided,-too rapid, I fancy, for that perfect delicacy and delicious holdingdown, which enables the performer to sing, as it were, on the piano-forte :

But

-my conception of the ideal instrumentalist. the difference between the sisters' respective ways when asked to sing! Which is which, dear Catherine? One requires to be pressed, but yields with a good-natured facility; one proceeds to the task, unreluctant, but wearing the semblance of la poco curante, as if unwilling to give the smallest loophole for an inference that she regards it as the least possible favour. Which is which?

But you will say his thoughts run but in one channel, east, west, north, south, in whatever quarter they start, they converge on Preciosa. Well,

-if her thoughts dwell one half as much on my unworthiness as mine on dearest Lucy-But I was going to say, latterly, in these quieter days, it has been a great pleasure to me to watch the little Louise and Annie; and, as I have no news to give, copy out for you, dear sister, a few Hints of an

I

Amateur, from my note-book, reserving actual bonâ fide sketches of these dear little ones and their ways till we are once more together.

When I see the dear children-the grace-the deep and touching innocence, terrible in its very depth the all-confiding faith and love-I often think-childhood the promise, and manhood the non-fulfilment.

It is so pleasant to hear them, in the endeavour to grasp the thoughts of later years, stop, and blush, and hesitate, as they exhaust their little vocabulary; to hear the great words fall from the tender lips, and then, perhaps, the "dreen," and "tat," and "shash," the engaging relics of their infancy; or, again, the quick blush-the straining and fearful utterance when we call for the easy song, or ballad poem, learnt by the child-learnt by heart, as the truly charming phrase has it-in the very spring-tide freshness and delight of learning. How graceful-how full of the deepest meaning, to see them, before they dare begin the little performance, look for the smile of sympathy, and return it!

We hold them in our arms-we look into their eyes we press them to us-we cannot have them too near us; and we do right to give ourselves this happiness. For it is not the tender person alone that flings out it little arms around our neck, and presses face to face; but the body-identified

soul, that not alone informs the limbs, but is one with them and in them. And the children themselves are blindly conscious of it. It was long before I could so gain the dear courageous Annie's confidence as to win her to trust herself, of her own free will and motion, to my arms, hesitatingly at first, and, as it were, reverentially.

Affection for children is one of the things of which Men are more than half ashamed. In de.. fending it, you may say that I defend myself. Yet I may say I have known few disinterestedly fond of these little ones, in whose own character there was not something of greatness and heroism. These happy creatures, "to themselves are all-sufficient;" but a man must be thoroughly Manlike: must have laid aside the engrossing selfishness of youth-must have recognised the insufficiency of himself and of things about him,-must be conscious of his own defaced or toilsomely preserved purity, before he can turn and seek his "original brightness"-his own true second childhood among them. No affection, he will then feel, 'no reverence is too great for them. We are then least childish when we lose ourselves in the love of children.

As if conscious of the soul that animates their whole personality, the "pretty dimples of chin and cheek the very frame of hand, nail, and finger"— we see children invest with their own overflowing life the dumb and senseless forms and motions of